I've always been about 150-155lbs, 6 ft tall. Past month and a half I've been on a strict bulking diet just to see if I could [because I just can't gain weight. If I ate nothing but mcdonalds and sat on the couch all day I'd lose weight faster, it's happened before]. I'm at about 175lbs now, but no matter what I can't break it. I eat a chunky peanut butter sandwich and have a 1030 calorie mass gainer shake before bed every night. I had a nutritionist and a personal trainer a year or so ago, so I know what I'm supposed to be eating. My work out is a 3 day routine that a bodybuilder friend of mine gave me and it's working great: Day 1[Chest and Triceps] Flat Bench Press Incline Bench Press Decline Bench Press Dumbell Flyes Close Grip Bench French Curls Arm Blaster Triceps Pushdown Day 2[Back and Biceps] Dead Lift T-Bar Row Lat Pull Down Seated Row Barbell Curl Alternating Dumbell Curls Concentration Curls Arm Blaster Ez Bar Curls Day3 [Legs, Shoulders andTraps] Squats Leg Press Leg Extensions Leg Curls Seated Calf Raise Standing Calf Raise Horizontal Calf Push Seated Military Press Dumbell Press Front Dumbell Raise Side Lateral Dumbell Raise Barbell Shrugs Upright Rows Dumbell Shrugs I do four sets for each exercise. Set 1 is fairly light for 10 reps. Sets 2 and 3 are a decently heavy weight for 8 reps each set. Set 4 is the maximum amount of weight I can put up for 4-5 reps. I've felt no plateau as far as lifting goes, my lifts keep going up every week. Basically just wondering based on the above information if anyone can offer any advice for putting on more mass. The simplest answer, "eat more", would be applicable if I wasn't already eating more food than my body can handle. I'm wondering if it's possible that gaining 25 lbs in a month is just fast and the rest of my body is catching up before I can gain anymore weight? Keep in mind I've never been over 158 lbs. Aid me in my conundrum!
I've had similar. Gained about 12kg in 3months (some of this was normal weight that I gained after much atrophy during rehab), then it stopped, and was very slow going. What did bring on the 2nd spurt, was just having a couple weeks off to rest and get into cardio. I made a bit more of a gain when I came back and worked on lifting heavier concentrating on the big lifts, and filling what I thought were strength gaps in different parts of my body. I didn't pursue it much after that because I was doing this at a cost of cardio. FYI I weighed 78kg, injured myself in February, lost 9 kg in 6 weeks, started weight lifting rehab in July, and finished at 85kg in November. Calorie intake was 3600/day to start with, then ended up at 4800/day. I plateaued at 81, and took another 2.5months to put on the extra 4kg. I'm no expert, but after wasting money on paid pro's to help me gain weight, I experimented on basics of food, exercises, and rest to suit me, and it worked.
If you're not gaining weight then it's your diet that needs to be addressed, not your training routine. Perversely, as your weight goes up, so your calorie requirements also go up. Also, just as perversely, as your food intake goes up, so your metabolic rate goes up, meaning you burn more calories so you need more calories. The trick I've found works is to track overall calorie intake and weigh myself at regular intervals. When I hit a plateau, I adjust calorie intake up (or down on fat-loss phase) to help overcome it.
Sorry this is sort of off topic but Ive always learned to work out opposing muscle groups... Such as you should work out your biceps and triceps one day, chest and back a different day, quads and hamstrings etc etc. I never knew why to be honest. It seems with what your doing is working out supporting muscle groups together? I either see that as good because your working your triceps to the max because its also involved in most chest exercises. And you use your biceps when doing back exercises. So in that case your biceps and triceps are kinda getting an extra workout. Yet I can also see that as bad because you may not be able to efficiently work out your chest because you exhausted your triceps. Im only a casual lifter though, not an expert or anything so I dont know all science involved.
Probably diet most likely. Check out a site like DailyBurn.com where you can keep track of all you eat and do throughout the day.
Cosmic pretty much answered your question, which is to eat more, but I thought I should comment on your routine because it's got some holes in it, especially if you are doing your split like this: Mon: Day 1 Tue: Day 2 Wed: Day 3 Thur: rest Fri: Day 1 Sat: Day 2 Sun: Day 3 Why would you be doing curls on your chest and tricep day? Why would you be doing deadlifts on your back and bicep day? And if you do curls one day, then curls the next, your body won't have time to recover. You need to recover before your next workout, plus, you should put some pullups in there. Day3 [Legs, Shoulders andTraps] Squats Leg Press Leg Extensions Leg Curls Seated Calf Raise Standing Calf Raise Horizontal Calf Push Seated Military Press Dumbell Press Front Dumbell Raise Side Lateral Dumbell Raise Barbell Shrugs Upright Rows Dumbell Shrugs[/QUOTE] If you do this workout right after your back and bicep day, you're going to interrupt your cycle. You need to recover before hitting your legs again. In general, I think your workout has too much volume in it. My brother used to do this type of workout until he started training with me and doing lower volume basic strength and olympic workouts. After that, his gains really escalated (when combined with a well-put together high protein diet). Also, you should split that protein shake in two. Take one of them during the day, one at night.
If your referring to the "french curls", that's directly a tricep work out... [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lAmBHQnoN-s"]YouTube- How To Do French Curls/Skull Crushers/Lying Tricep Extensions (Compound Version, Not Isolation)[/ame]
Deadlifts on back day is definitely fine, I don't see a problem with it. If he's doing that well in a month so far, he's obviously on the right track. I think his only problem is he's still eating for his previous weight and hasn't adapted for his current weight. Isolation exercises have their place: as awesome as many compound exercises are (and how they should be your primary focus), certain isolation exercises help you break past sticking points and plateaus.
Appreciate the information. Would you have any suggestions for something better? I changed my diet up a bit, hit 185lbs this afternoon by the way.
I prefer a good beginner strength workout: 1 olympic lift 3x5 (jump shrug, hang clean, power clean, etc) 1 leg lift 3x5 (deadlift, squat, bulgarian split squat, step ups, etc) 1 push 3x5 (shoulder press, bench, floor press) 1 pull 3x5 (pullup, row) Enough for hypertrophy and some left in the tank for fight training. The next step would be to come up with a cycle, like: 2 weeks 3x5 2 weeks 4x6 2 weeks 8x3 2 weeks 4x5 at 60% 5RM, focusing on doing the lift as fast as possible 2 weeks deloading (no weights)
The only thing I will add is that if you are doing any cardio, including martial arts training and you really want to put on wiehgt then stop doing it. You can't afford to burn any calories. Everything else has been said I think.
If you're already doing an O-lift, I would suggest against doing deadlifts and stick with squats. O-lift, deadlift, and row in the same workout would lay you up for a minute there once you got to any appreciable weight.
Devil-look up the feared " 20 Rep Squat Routine " - if you dare!!!! Seriously- an old,simple, and proven method which probably requires more mental fortitude than physical toughness.
Working out opposing muscle groups is more of an advanced technique that normally isn't done for very long. Normally used to switch things up when you have been doing the same routine for a long period of time. The reason to do it is that you have not worked one at all when you are working the other so you can do more weight. When you work the triceps at the same time as the chest, every chest exercise weakens how much weight you can do for the next triceps exercise since they are worked during the chest AND during the tri's. Now, the reason NOT to do it for chest and back is that in order to gain bulk on either of these areas you have to go farily heavy. When you do chest with heavy weights you use up a large portion of your energy reserves so that when you go to do your back exercises you are already tired and just can't lift/pull as much. Same for if you start back first. Again, it is a good thing to do for a change of pace, but not for a regular routine. Another way to think of using opposing muscles is working chest/biceps, back/triceps. Those groups aren't worked at the same time yet you won't be to exhausted to do the next exercise because bi's/tri's just simply do not require as much energy (even though it might feel otherwise!!).
Switching up is great! Change all your bar routines with dumb bells instead. Not for weight gain...but just give it a try I think you will be surprised on how different it feels!
For the routine that was posted earlier: I prefer a good beginner strength workout: 1 olympic lift 3x5 (jump shrug, hang clean, power clean, etc) 1 leg lift 3x5 (deadlift, squat, bulgarian split squat, step ups, etc) 1 push 3x5 (shoulder press, bench, floor press) 1 pull 3x5 (pullup, row) Enough for hypertrophy and some left in the tank for fight training. The next step would be to come up with a cycle, like: 2 weeks 3x5 2 weeks 4x6 2 weeks 8x3 2 weeks 4x5 at 60% 5RM, focusing on doing the lift as fast as possible 2 weeks deloading (no weights) How many times a week should this be performed? Twice? Three times?
